The Responsibility of Intellectuals

In Salon, Jay Parini writes that "a key moment" for him was "reading an article in the New York Review of Books that caught my eye. It was 'The Responsibility of Intellectuals,' written by Noam Chomsky:"

Nothing was quite the same for me after reading that piece, which I've reread periodically throughout my life, finding things to challenge me each time. I always finish the essay feeling reawakened, aware that I've not done enough to make the world a better place by using whatever gifts I may have. Chomsky spurs me to more intense reading and thinking, driving me into action, which might take the form of writing an op-ed piece, joining a march or protest, sending money to a special cause, or just committing myself to further study a political issue.

"It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies," as Chomsky asserted. Parini continues:

Fifty years after writing "The Responsibility of Intellectuals," Chomsky remains vigorous and shockingly productive, and -- in the dawning age of President Donald Trump -- one can only hope he has a few more years left. In a recent interview, he said (with an intentional hyperbole that has always been a key weapon in his arsenal of rhetorical moves) that the election of Trump "placed total control of the government -- executive, Congress, the Supreme Court -- in the hands of the Republican Party, which has become the most dangerous organization in world history."

"As I reread Chomsky's essay on the responsibility of intellectuals," Parini concludes, "it strikes me forcefully that not one of us who has been trained to think critically and to write lucidly has the option to remain silent now:"

Too much is at stake, including the survival of some form of American democracy and decency itself, if not an entire ecosystem. With a dangerously ill-informed bully in the White House, a man almost immune to facts and rational thought, we who have training in critical thought and exposition must tirelessly call a spade a spade, a demagogue a demagogue. And the lies that emanate from the Trump administration must be patiently, insistently and thoroughly deconstructed. This is the responsibility of the intellectual, now more than ever.